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Sociological Christianity and Christian Sociology: The Paradox of Early American Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Susan E. Henking
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Extract

In 1975, Robin Gill wrote that “as yet there is a rather thin body of literature on possible correlations between sociology and theology.” Since then, a host of other writers have joined Gill in commenting on the absence of such correlations and in seeking to connect the two phenomena. Indeed, the current era in American culture might, as several commentators have noted, be understood as one of detente between social science and religion. Such a depiction, of course, rests on the assumption that sociology and theology are hostile enterprises that may be brought together. This has, however, not always been the case: the past fifteen years are not the first occasion when theology and sociology have intersected and a Christian sociology been proposed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Winter 1993 , pp. 49 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1993

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References

Notes

I am indebted to Catherine Conybeare for her careful reading of earlier versions of this article.

1. Gill, Robin, The Social Context of Theology: A Methodological Enquiry (London: Mowbrays, 1975), 3.Google Scholar Gill explicitly mentions Peter Berger and David Martin as exceptions to his generalization. On the use of “detente,” see Johnson, Benton, “Faith, Facts and Values in the Sociology of Religion,” in Religious Sociology: Interfaces and Boundaries, ed. Swatos, William H., Jr. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 3.Google Scholar For other authors working in the area of theology and sociology, see Baum, Gregory, ed., Sociology and Human Destiny: Essays on Sociology, Religion, and Society (New York: Seabury Press, 1980);Google Scholar Martin, David et al., eds., Sociology and Theology: Alliance and Conflict (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980);Google Scholar and Milbank, John, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1989).Google Scholar

2. In the United States, the emergence of sociology occurred simultaneously with radical shifts in higher education, including its secularization. As Richard H. of stadter has noted, “there can be no doubt that while the early American college was founded in an intimate union with the church, modern higher education is predominantly secular. One can hardly touch the history of American colleges and universities at any point from the closing decades of the seventeenth century to the opening decades of the twentieth century without finding some process of secularization.” Hofstadter, Richard, “The Development of Higher Education in America,” in The Development and Scope of Higher Education in the United States, ed. Hofstadter, Richard and Hardy, C. DeWitt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 3.Google Scholar For detailed analyses, see Oleson, Alexandra and Voss, John, eds., The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979);Google Scholar Tewksbury, Donald G., The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the Civil War with Particular Reference to the Religious Influences Bearing Upon the College Movement (New York: Teacher's College, Columbia University, Bureau of Publications, 1932);Google Scholar and Veysey, Laurence R., The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).Google Scholar On changes in theological education, see Farley, Edward, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).Google Scholar

3. The term “Christian,” of course, subsumes much more than Protestantism; when used to refer to Christian sociology, however, the two terms often are treated as equivalent. For discussions of the relation of Catholicism to sociology in the United States, see Nuesse, C. Joseph, “The Introduction of the Social Sciences in the Catholic University of America, 1895-1909,” Social Thought 12, no. 1 (1986): 30–43;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the various articles commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Catholic Sociology Association in Sociological Analysis 50, no. 4 (1989). It is widely acknowledged that significant breaks occur in the history of sociology after World War I. On the overall decline of the discipline's religious connotations by that time, see Harvey, Lee, Myths of the Chicago School of Sociology (Brookfleld, Vt: Gower Publishing Co., 1987), 26.Google Scholar On the post-World War I emphasis on “objectivism,” see Bannister, Robert C., Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 1880-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987).Google Scholar

4. For discussions of the emergence of courses and departments, see Paul J. Baker, Mary Z. Ferrell, and Susan M. Quensel, “Departmentalization of Sociology in the United States, 1880-1928” (Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, August 1975); Bernard, Jessie, “The History and Prospects of Sociology in the United States,” in Trends in American Sociology, ed. Lundberg, George A., Read Bain, and Anderson, Nels (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1929), 1–17;Google Scholar and Bernard, L. L., “The Teaching of Sociology in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 15 (July 1909-May 1910): 164–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Many histories of American sociology begin with a brief discussion of Protestantism as a part of the context within which sociology arose in the United States. Some merely mention the predominance of clergy among the early figures; see, e.g., Hinkle, Roscoe C. and Hinkle, Gisela J., The Development of Modern Sociology: Its Nature and Growth in the United States (New York: Random House, 1954), 3;Google Scholar and Coser, Lewis A., “American Trends,” in The History of Sociological Analysis, ed. Bottomore, Tom and Nisbet, Robert (New York: Basic Books, 1978), 287.Google Scholar Others consider the role of Protestantism more thoroughly; see, e.g., Greek, Cecil Eugene, “The Religious Roots of American Sociology” (Ph.D. diss., New School for Social Research, 1983);Google Scholar Oberschall, Anthony, “The Institutionalization of American Sociology” in The Establishment of Empirical Sociology: Studies in Continuity, Discontinuity, and Institutionalization, ed. Oberschall, Anthony (New York: Harper and Row, 1972);Google Scholar Swatos, William H., Jr., Faith of The Fathers: Science, Religion and Reform in the Development of Early American Sociology (Bristol, Ind.: Wyndham Hall, 1984);Google Scholar and Vidich, Arthur J. and Lyman, Stanford M., American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and Their Directions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

5. On the establishment of lectureships in sociology at seminaries, see Abell, Aaron Ignatius, The Urban Impact of American Protestantism, 1865-1900, Harvard Historical Studies, no. 54. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943), 235;Google Scholar Dombrowski, James, The Early Days of Christian Socialism in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 9 Google Scholar and chap. 5; Morgan, J. Graham, “The Development of Sociology and the Social Gospel in America,” Sociological Analysis 30 (1969): 48,51;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Swatos, Faith of the Fathers, 11-27. In regard to the term “Christian sociology,” see Abell, Urban Impact, 17-20; and Swatos, Faith of the Fathers, 17-20. These same works reveal that historical connections between sociology and the social gospel remain controversial. While many authorities agree that there is some relation, authors disagree about which came first and about the degree of influence of one on the other. Historians of the social gospel itself who have also contributed to this debate include, for example, Hopkins, Charles Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in America 1865-1915, Yale Studies in Religious Education, no. 14. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940);Google Scholar and T Hooft, W. A. Visser, The Background of the Social Gospel in America (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenck Willink and Zoon, 1928).Google Scholar

6. Personal letter from William A. Hutchinson to Paul Carter, cited in Carter, Paul A., The Spiritual Crisis of the Gilded Age (DeKalb, 111.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), viii.Google Scholar

7. For a detailed argument regarding Small's representativeness, see Susan E. Henking, “American Protestantism and American Sociology: A Contextual Study of Varieties of Secularization” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1988), chaps. 4 and 6. On the importance of the German Ph.D. for the history of the social sciences in the United States, see Herbst, Jurgen, The German Historical School in American Thought (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

8. Albion W. Small, “President's Report; Colby University, June 10, 1890” (Waterville, Maine: Colby University Bulletin, privately printed, 1890), 16-17; quoted in Thomas Jack Morrione, “The Early Life and Works of Albion Woodbury Small” (M.A. thesis, University of New Hampshire, 1967), 73. Subsequent reports elaborated on Small's efforts at teaching sociology; see, in this regard, Morrione, “Early Life and Works,” 149,155,156.

9. Small, Albion W., Syllabus: Introduction to the Science of Sociology: Development of Modern Philosophies of Society with Special Reference to Comte, Bluntchli, Lieber, Lotze, Spencer and Ward (Waterville, Maine: Printed at the Mail Office, 1890).Google Scholar For specific comments linking religion and sociology, see 81, 90-92, 106, and 147.

10. Morrione, “Early Life and Works,” 157-58.

11. Thomas W. Goodspeed, “Albion W. Small,” University Record, n.s., 12, no. 4 (1926): 252.

12. House, Floyd Nelson, “A List of the More Important Published Writings of Albion Wbodbury Small,” American journal of Sociology 32 (1926-27): 15-4.Google Scholar

13. The department to which Small was affiliated changed its name several times during his tenure. For simplicity, I have simply labeled it the “Department of Sociology” throughout this article. For information regarding the changes in name, see Diner, Steven J., “Department and Discipline: The Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, 1892-1920,” Minerva 13, no. 34 (1975): 514-53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the quotation, see Albion W Small, “What Should Be the Ideal of Our Own Graduate School of Social Science” (undated typescript, stamped March 20, 1924, page 5, in Presidential Papers 1889-1925, Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library, Box 36, Folder 9).

14. Small himself argued for a linkage between the sociology department and the Divinity School in a letter to William Rainey Harper dated December 21, 1898. In this letter, Small decried a recent Divinity School plan to put off sociological training until the second year of divinity education. Small to Harper, December 21,1898, Presidential Papers 1889-1925, Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library, Box 60, Folder 28. Another example of departmental linkage is the relation between the Department of Sociology and the field of political economy. In this regard, see Diner, “Department and Discipline,” 545-46.

15. Mathews's importance lies in his own interest in sociological topics as well as in his relationship with Small. Both men taught at Colby College, and, in his capacity as president of that college, Small was responsible for transferring Mathews to the Department of History and Political Economy, where Mathews was first to hear the word “sociology.” When Small left Colby for the University of Chicago, he planned, according to Mathews, “to have me enter his department as soon as was practicable. In consequence I set about, under his direction, an independent study of the literature of sociology.” Diner, “Department and Discipline,” 541. In 1894, Mathews was offered a position in New Testament history at Chicago not by Small but by Ernest DeWitt Burton of the Divinity School. Convinced, despite his hesitation to come to the university, Mathews spent the rest of his career at Chicago.

16. Diner has documented close ties between the Department of Sociology and the Divinity School. Diner, “Department and Discipline,” 540-43. The program in “Ecclesiastical Sociology,” as he has noted, “was in fact only an administrative arrangement. There was no difference in the courses or requirements for a major field in either sociology or [ecclesiastical sociology] and all work in the department of sociology carried credit towards a degree in Divinity.” Ibid., 542. See also, in this regard, Small to Howard B. Woolston, April 16,1915, Presidential Papers 1889-1925, Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library, Box 18, Folder 5.

17. For Small's role in the creation of the Society, see Odum, Howard W., American Sociology: The Story of Sociology in the United States through 1950 (New York: Longmans Green, 1951), 94–96.Google Scholar Small proposed the formation of the journal in a letter to President Harper dated April 25,1895. In that letter, he argued for the need for such a journal as well as for the University of Chicago's unique capability for producing it. See, in this regard, Small to Harper, reproduced in Dibble, Vernon K., The Legacy of Albion W. Small (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), appendix B, 164-65.Google Scholar

18. Small, Albion W., “The Era of Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology 1 (July 1895): 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. On the general point, see Howard P. Becker, “Distribution of Space in the American Journal of Sociology, 1895-1927,” American Journal of Sociology 36 (November 1930): 461-66; and Ethel Shanas, “The American Journal of Sociology through Fifty Years,” American Journal of Sociology 50 (July 1944-May 1945): 522-33. Early issues of the American Journal of Sociology included Shailer Mathews's series on Christian sociology that addressed man, society, the family, the state, wealth, social life, the forces of human progress, and the process of social regeneration (vol. 1:69-78,182-94,359-80,457-72, 604-17,771-84; and vol. 2:108-17,274-87,416-32). In regard to defining Christian sociology, see the letter from Wilbur F. Crafts of the National Bureau of Reforms and the unsigned editorial reply, presumably written by Small, in American Journal of Sociology 1 (1895): 509-11; see also note 3 above.

20. Albion W. Small, “Some Undeveloped Social Resources in the Christian Revelation,” an address delivered at the anniversary of the Newton Theological Institution, June 1898 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1898), 21. For an earlier formulation of the same point, see the highly influential textbook that Small co-authored with Vincent, George E., An Introduction to the Study of Society (New York: American Book Company, 1894), 19–20.Google Scholar

21. Small, “Some Undeveloped Social Sources,” 22.

22. Small, Albion W., “The Church and the Social Problem,” Independent 53 (1901): 481.Google Scholar

23. Throughout his tenure as “head professor,” which lasted until his retirement in 1925, Small was involved in planning course work, promotions and hiring, evaluation of registrations, and other administrative matters for the department. He also participated in the training of graduate students who went on to teach sociology across the United States. Small taught a heavy load throughout his teaching career at the University of Chicago. As a result, “He introduced thousands of students to the sociological idea, and he trained most of the professional teachers of sociology who are now [1926] expounding the subtle secrets of the science between the Alleghenies and the Pacific.” Barnes, Harry Elmer, “The Place of Albion Woodbury Small in Modern Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology 32, no. 1 (1926): 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a former student's perspective on Small as a teacher, see MacLean, Annie Marion, “Albion Woodbury Small: An Appreciation,” American Journal of Sociology 32, no. 1 (1926): 45–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a broader indication of perceptions of Small's importance as a teacher and author, see Paul J. Baker, Martha Long, and Susan Quensel, “The Pioneers of American Sociology: An Empirical Study” (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, August 1973), 7, 8; for a reinterpretation of Baker et al., see Henking, “American Protestantism and American Sociology” chap. 6. One of the autobiographical statements elicited by Bernard also makes clear the conjunction of religion and sociology in Small's teaching. Lucile Eaves writes: “Professor Small had come into sociology from the ministry, and during the period [1898 and thereafter] I worked with him, he was very much influenced by his previous training. I am tempted to say he at this time produced theological sociology, as all his work was highly theoretical… .” Papers of L. L. Bernard, Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Pennsylvania State University, Box 3, Folder 9.

24. Throughout his writing, Small depicts sociology as composed of various components. Thus, in an 1893 edition of his Syllabus, Small divided sociology into descriptive, statical, and dynamic sociology. Small, Syllabus, 5,7. He subsequently changes the names, number, and relations between such divisions; see, in this regard, Dibble, Legacy of Albion W. Small, passim.

25. Small, Albion W., The Meaning of Social Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1910), 277.Google Scholar

26. See Graham Taylor, Vague Meditations, July 17,1870, Graham Taylor Collection, Newberry library, Chicago, Illinois. For a biographical overview of Taylor's life, see also James Walter Ewing, “Graham Taylor: Educator in ‘Life Rather Than Literature’ ” (B.D. thesis, Chicago Theological Seminary, 1955); and Wade, Louise Carroll, Graham Taylor: Pioneer for Social Justice, 1851-1938 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964).Google Scholar

27. Taylor, Graham, Pioneering on Social Frontiers (1900; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), 360.Google Scholar It was clearly, for Taylor, only a beginning, and a weak one at that, as he indicates throughout his reflections on this period.

28. Cited in White, Ronald C., Jr., and Hopkins, Charles Howard, The Social Gospel: Religion and Reform in Changing America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976), 136.Google Scholar

29. As Aaron I. Abell notes, “The adjective ‘institutional’ was employed to describe the numerous churches and missions which were expanding their functions to cover the entire life of man.” Abell, The Urban Impact of American Protestantism, 1865-1900, 137. The term has been attributed to William Jewett Tucker. In the specific case of Taylor and the Fourth Church, reaching out “to cover the entire life of man” included establishing a Young People's Union, creating a group to work with alcoholics, and appointing a “city missionary” who visited families, dealt with prison inmates, etc.

30. Charles Trumbull Russ, “The Hartford Years of Graham Taylor 1880-1892 with Special Emphasis on His Association with the Fourth Church and the Hartford Theological Seminary” (S.T.M. thesis, Hartford Theological Seminary, 1960), 58. Although Russ cites these as though they were Taylor's words, he does not cite a source, and I have been unable to locate one.

31. For a later reflection on his teaching at Hartford, drawing on his inaugural address, see Taylor, Pioneering, 387-88.

32. Ibid., passim.

33. Graham Taylor, “Our New Professorship,” Advance (September 8, 1892): 697.

34. Taylor describes the locale in his Pioneering, 4-5. See also 6ff. on the origins of the idea of the Commons. On the relation of religion to the settlement movement and to the Commons most particularly, see Outgoing Letters of Graham Taylor to Mrs. Aisley (May 4,1927), Mr. Ogden (May 8,1916), and Mr. Stead (March 8,1918), Graham Taylor Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.

35. Taylor, Graham, Religion in Social Action (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1913), viii.Google Scholar

36. Taylor, Graham, Chicago Commons through Forty Years (Chicago: Chicago Commons Association, 1936), 15.Google Scholar Although initially affiliated with the Congregational church, the Chicago Commons Settlement House adopted policies emphasizing religious pluralism: “Since our household has included residents of Roman Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, and Ethical Faiths, as well as those of several racial heritages, no difference could be seen between the service and sacrifice inspired by differing faiths. We have never needed any test of creed or recognized any reason for sectarian differentiation.” Taylor, Chicago Commons, 25; see also 160, 194ff.; Taylor, Religion in Social Action, xxv; and a March 15,1938, letter addressed to Arthur contained in the Outgoing Letters of Graham Taylor, Graham Taylor Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.

37. Outgoing Letters of Graham Taylor, to Will, February 26,1935, Graham Taylor Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. For other letters reflecting on or giving the history of the introduction of sociology to the seminary, see Graham Taylor's letters to Mrs. G. W. Isham (January 13,1937); Mr. Wortman (September 8,1937); and John J. Mitchell (September 9,1937), Outgoing Letters of Graham Taylor, Graham Taylor Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. In addition to my own archival work, this section is indebted to Ewing, “Graham Taylor,” passim; and Charles Trumbull Russ, “The Theological Views of Graham Taylor with Reference to the Social Gospel and its Applications to Industry, also a Bibliography of Graham Taylor's Works” (Ph.D. diss., Hartford Theological Seminary, 1964).

38. Taylor, Pioneering, 398-99.

39. Graham Taylor, “Chicago Theological Seminary Department of Christian Sociology,” (pamphlet, n.p., 1895). Available at the Graham Taylor Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.

40. In this regard see Taylor's own summary of his intellectual trajectory, summarized in Pioneering, viii.

41. Graham Taylor, “The Social Settlement and Its Suggestions to the Churches,” The Hartford Seminary Record (December 1893): 57; Russ, “Theological Views of Graham Taylor,” 146-47.

42. Taylor, Religion in Social Action, 80-81; see also 28.

43. Taylor, Graham, “A New Movement: Christian Aspects of Sociology” The Interior (December 15,1892): 12.Google Scholar For a similar statement, see Taylor, Religion in Social Action, 94.

44. In this, Small and Taylor were not alone. See Crunden, Robert M., Ministers of Reform: The Progressives'Achievement in American Civilization, 1889-1920 (New York: Basic Books, 1982).Google Scholar

45. For examples of others who fit the two patterns that Small and Taylor evince, see Henking, “American Protestantism and American Sociology” chap. 4.

46. Small, Meaning of Social Science, 259.

47. Taylor, Religion in Social Action, 88.